LAUER: When you left office, President Bush, your popularity numbers were around 30 percent, give or take, depending on the poll. You say it... It didn't bother you?

BUSH: No, it didn't.

LAUER: You know, I try to personalize that. I-- I've been doin' this job for 14 years. And if after 14 years, only 30 percent of people who've watched this show think I did a good job--

BUSH: They'll fire ya.

LAUER: Well, it's gonna hurt like hell.

BUSH: I don't think it does. No. Because I-- I also was, as you just mentioned, at one time over 90 percent. I didn't take it seriously then. I don't take it-- didn't take it seriously when I left office. Somebody walked up to me the other day and said, "Congratulations. Your popularity is way up since you left office." And my answer was, "So what?" Seriously. I mean if you chase popularity, you're chasing a moment. You're chasing a poof of air.

If you chase popularity... you're chasing a poof of air.

On the other hand, this is a democracy. And, like the man said, They'll fire ya.

64 comments:

Velma Hart, who burst onto the media scene after telling President Obama she was scared about her financial future, has been laid off. Hart was let go as the chief financial officer for Am Vets, a nonprofit Maryland-based veteran services organization

Just another one of the 9+ million jobs lost since Harry & Nancy were sworn in...

What sticks out to me when reading this is that Bush's percentage is presumably all Americans polled and Lauer's percentage is of Lauer's viewers. "A poof of air" is sort of funny. GMay, you see Bush passing the buck?

It has been an amazing turn of events for the Boy King, with Americans going from great hopes in him to despising him for lying to them all of the time, and realizing he lies so that they would not notice in time the sword he was brandishing to slash away their way of life. In the movie Dr Zhivago , the Dr said that some Dr has to keep the body politic alive while social experimenters are bringing it near death. The Boy King is now going to see what free men and especially free women think about Obama's Dr Mengele type of experiments done to a Scots-Irish people.

When you have a job to do, a job that is important and vital to the safety and security of your organization.... and the job entails things that might make 'some' people uncomfortable or even angry, you can't sit and worry that you might become unpopular in some circles.

You have to do the job to the best of your abilities and not waiver from your principles. You can't sell your soul for popularity.

As a country colloquialism. The phrase is pretty good.

Here is one about Obama. "You might as well try to nail jello to a tree". Slippery sucker isn't he?

Sgt Ted...The basic lies are Global Warming Hoax promotion and their pretended green windmill jobs. Add to that whopper and outlawing of CO2 emissions by EPA hoax science. And see that every statement he made about the Health Insurance Reform were 100% lies to cover up for his bringing socialized medicine in to replace a good system that he just intentionally destroyed. And shutting down Gulf Oil drilling for a hoax altered report of dangers, all to benefit Soros' plans in Brazil. And also telling our allies to forget our help unless they submitted to being sold out to our joint enemies first, all done to take authority over Jerusalem from those pesky Jews. I have to leave now, but the list goes on and on.

Before the midterms, I wrote in the comments here that the 2010 election was going to be like the scene at the end of Tommy where the disciples pull off the eyeshades, pull out the earplugs and the corks, and start smashing things, singing "We're Not Gonna Take It." And that was BEFORE the latest TSA groping debacle. This is what happens when a false messiah is exposed:

Comedy as in believing a comforting Fox Nation piece (that links to a 1999 Zogby poll of all places) that Obama is unpopular. Gallup has him at 47%, virtually unchanged from a year ago. But no matter. It just sounds so good! Not to mention Obama is being polled on his job approval, when Sarah Palin really has no job to be judged by. Wonder if Lindsey Lohan has been polled recently. She is popular, she's in the news almost every day it seems.

Sometimes I see a minivan in the parking lot at the store when I go grocery shopping. It has a bumper sticker that says, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." And it has not one but two Obama bumper stickers. That was some DAMN expensive ignorance, wasn't it? But we're older and wiser now.

"On the other hand, this is a democracy. And, like the man said, They'll fire ya."

Bush's 'pay no attention to popularity' is a nice sentiment for a memoir, but remarkably poor advice for a sitting president -- and one of the key reasons why his presidency took such a turn for the worse in the second term. A president has to convince the public to accept his policies, that if adopted, his policies will improve their lives -- it's the 'bully pulpit' idea, and when it works, the president can bring the country along with him. And where the country goes, the Congress is sure to follow. And when it doesn't work, the president has trouble getting anything done.

FDR and Reagan were able to maek effective use of the bully pulpit; Bush (at his best, in 2001-2003) was also able to do that. But when he turned to domestic policy, not so much. Obama has been pretty ineffective on that score, and if you plotted his effectiveness over time, it would be a downward slope getting steeper over time. Perhaps he will figure it out. But I haven't seen anything to suggest that he will -- he mostly has the ability to convince the already convinced, while everyone else is tuning him out.

Hence the ephemeralness of the current administration's achievements, and the subsequent grumbling and dismay on the part of his groupies. Is it any wonder certain people, like Velma Hart that Jay mentioned above, are "exhausted" from defending him? They're chasing that poof of air themselves in order to validate their selection in the last election. He's simply not going to be as popular as he was when he was able to play off his constructed image during the election (as opposed to his actual substance and achivements, which were sorely lacking); being in office and forced to demonstrate what amount substance you actually possess will do that to a person. Yet, those groupies seem baffled at the dislike and continue to chase the other poof of air that is Obama's supposed substance. And try to find ways to blame his failures on "bitter clingers".

There's more than one poof of air to chase. Popularity is only one of them. And the groupies are chasing more than one.

Garage, the Zogby poll may put Obama's job approval a little lower than other recent polls, but 39% isn't outrageously different from 45%.

What puzzled me is the comparison to Sarah Palin's "job approval rating". It got me wondering what her current *job* is. Leaving the reality show stint out of it, she is basically engaged with the people she cares about, her community, trying to give them a voice and improve their situation through political action. In other words, she is a community organizer. That bodes well for her chances in 2012.

You can find unpopularity in more than one way also; either by doing the right but painful thing, or by fecklessly doing blatantly wrong things. Bambam's inexplicable retention of popularity has to be the result of the sycophantic leftstream media lovefest, which may itself finally be ending. We may finally see some movement in his polls. As others have said, I was disappointed in many ways by W, but he was definitely working against a hostile media industry. I despised the TOTUS since before it was cool; I knew his qualifications from before the primaries, and watched, appalled, as people voted for him..

Anyone else think Axelrod's "recharging his batteries" before tooling up the 2012 re-election effort is just another way of bowing out before all the cards start to fall? Does anyone give any serious consideration to the notion Axelrod might find a "personal reason" not to manage that campaign?

But imagine where Obama would be with the same media treatment. Do you remember when it was of the utmost importance to give us the daily count of soldiers killed in action? Remember when it was important to photograph military caskets? Remember the daily media demands for Bush to admit that he made mistakes? No? I'm guessing the media doesn't either as none of these things seem to apply to Obama.

I don't say that "like" Obama could make a difference, I'm flat out saying it. His anti-growth policies are a serious drag on the economy.

Was watching MOrning Joe this am before work and (I can't remember his name) but one of the guests was talking about how even Democrat CEOs and business people are aghast at this administration's complete lack of focus on business.

What I find troubling is that these supposed smart folks didn't figure that out 2 years ago.

2. HIs tax cuts for the wealthy as he grew government faster than anyone since LBJ's heyday?

3. His stalwart standing up to the passing things of popularity...bravely deciding to buck them and give seniors their free drugs paid by CHina IOUS? Refusing to court popularity by vetoing a single Republican pork packed bill passing his desk? Bravely fighting the popular will that said "keep an eye on those wall street crooks" - instead saying if you can't trust my heavy donors, who can I trust.

4. His great nation-building adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan after the enemy was feated in a month?

The polls have shown Obama at 45ish for a year. That's not bad given the economy. Reagan was at the same level or worse in '82. If the economy grows at 3-4 percent rate for the next two years he's fine. If it grows minimally or shrinks, he's toast

With the last days of Obama staying in the White House, he seems to decline in terms of trust rate. However, I would like to commend him for his support on same sex marriage under the family law. Jacksonville FL, is a place where same sex marriage is unrecognized. I hope with him supporting this, perhaps the community will slowly accept it.

Obama advisor and pedophiles who work for Democrats are running rampant in the DC Metro area:

Robert Decheine, chief of staff to Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ), was arrested in Gaithersburg, Md. last Friday on charges of soliciting sex from a minor....Decheine was a senior advisor to the Obama campaign in 2008, according to PolitickerNJ. He previously served as chief of staff to Rep. Bill Luther (D-MN).

George W. Bush served two full terms as president while America was the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth. That's a very exclusive club, and it contains exactly none of the presidential popularity poll respondents.

I don't agree with all of the ways he spent his political capital, but he didn't leave office with a bunch of it hoarded and useless. I'm not sure that by nature he's a thoughtful, reflective man, but certainly his father's career succeeded in giving Dubya an appropriately broad perspective regarding the presidency in the very biggest of pictures.

In a book about basketball David Halberstam quotes O.J. Simpson, quoting an unidentified hockey announcer:"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and money takes wing. All that endures is character."